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208 Methodieva

Chapter 10 Muslim Culture, Reform and Patriotism: Staging Namık Kemal in Post-Ottoman (1878-1908)

Milena B. Methodieva

In one of the scenes of what has become the most celebrated Ottoman play, Namık Kemal’s Vatan Yahud Silistre (The Fatherland or ) written in 1872, the protagonist delivers an inspiring speech to a group of volunteers he is leading in the defense of the key strategic fortress against the enemy ad- vance:

Friends! We will go the length of the . The Danube is our spring of life. If the Danube is gone, the fatherland cannot live; if the fatherland does not live, no man can live in the fatherland…. May be there will be someone alive…. Yes! May be there will be someone. (Then with great anger) No, no. There will be someone alive, but this will not be a man. If a man sees the fatherland trampled he cannot live. If a man sees trampled the one who has nurtured and raised him he cannot live. The person who sees trampled the one who has nurtured and raised him and still lives, is lower than a dog. Brothers! Man is not lower than a dog! …. There is a God greater than man! God commands love for the fatherland. Our fatherland means the Danube. Because if the Danube goes, there is no fatherland. Wherever you dig on the banks of the Danube, a bone of your father or brother will be found. The land washed by the ripples of the Danube wa- ter is made up of the remnants of those who died fighting to protect it. Since the time when the name Ottoman was heard, the Danube was crossed several times, many times. But it was never conquered. While the Ottomans stand, it will not be taken once; if the Ottomans know what Ottoman patriotism is, it will never be taken. Are you ready to die for the fatherland?1

This passage is noteworthy not only because it exudes fervent Ottoman patrio- tism, a concept by which the play and its author have since come to be

1 Namık Kemal, Vatan Yahud Silistre, 7th print (Def‘a-i Sab‘i) (n.p.p.: n.p., 1308/1889-90), pp. 37- 39, translation by author.

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Muslim Culture, Reform And Patriotism 209

identified, but also because it underscores the significance of the Danube and the lands around it as an important place in the Ottoman patriotic imagina- tion. In it the future of the fatherland is closely connected with the fate of the Danube. But even if the passage warns of the dangers looming over the Otto- man state with the loss of the Danube, it has the air of an uplifting prophecy aiming to inspire and reassure not only the characters of the play but also its audiences. Although danger was imminent, it would be overcome again. This was not complacency but a confidence in the future of the Ottoman state. These words perhaps reflected contemporaneous sentiments. In 1872-73, when the play was written and staged, in spite of the internal challenges the Otto- man state faced, few could imagine the permanent loss of the area around the Danube. At the time the lands south of the river made up the Danube , the Ottoman where the reforms had scored the most re- markable successes. The Ottoman authorities had introduced there more regu- lar administration in which they sought to address Christian grievances. Defenses were sound after the fortification of several fortresses, among them Silistra. The permanent loss of the area did not seem a realistic danger. Six years after the play was written, however, events had taken such a turn that the inconceivable had come true. The former Danube province, along with the cherished banks of the Danube, had become part of the newly-estab- lished Bulgarian state. The play also experienced its share of vicissitudes. As Namık Kemal fell out of favor with the Hamidian regime so, too, did his works which reemerged prominently on Ottoman stages only after the . But, in comparison, during the time of their eclipse in the Otto- man empire, the plays of Namık Kemal came to enjoy substantial popularity in Bulgaria among the local Muslims; indeed, many of them were introduced to modern theater through these works. What was the meaning and purpose of Namık Kemal’s plays for Bulgaria’s Muslims? What were their responses to these performances? And what was the role of theater in their communal life? Along with addressing these questions this chapter aims to shed light on some aspects of the history of the Muslims in Bulgaria during the first decades of Bulgaria’s existence. Most significantly, it challenges the common assump- tions which portray the Muslim community as a conservative inert mass unin- terested in any cultural endeavors by providing an insight into the activity of a locally grown Muslim movement for cultural reform and political mobiliza- tion. Theater was one aspect of its activities. Western-style theater began gaining popularity in the fol- lowing the introduction of the Tanzimat. In addition to various European troupes the 1840s saw the appearance of the first professional Ottoman com­ panies. The Naum Theater, the first lasting institution, opened its doors in